Kathie Sisson is a devout hosta collector and hobbyist turned hybridizer who first discovered hostas ~15 years ago. At the time she gardened in a small shady yard and discovered how valuable the hosta can be as a garden standard. Since then Kathie has utilized the hosta more and more and now gardens primarily with hosta for season-long color and specimen interest. Her hosta collection now numbers over 1400 cultivars including several of her own hybrids/introductions. In 2001 she became an active member of the Tri-State Hosta Society and now serves as the president. She also belongs to the New England Hosta Society, Upstate New York Hosta Society, Western New York Hosta Society, and American Hosta Society and serves as a Senior Judge for cut leaf shows and a Garden Performance judge. In her spare time, Kathie enjoys visiting gardens and loves to photograph hosta specimens. Many of her pictures are used at the Hosta Library (hostalibrary.org), a non-profit website that catalogs the many cultivars and species available. Kathie has given talks to the TSHS, UNYHS, WNYHS and the Berkshire Botanical Garden and is thrilled to have the opportunity to speak at the 28th Annual Connecticut Flower & Garden Show. Kathie lives in Avon, CT with her husband, four kids, two dogs and two cats.

Jeff Hutton is an award winning landscape designer - owner of Earthworks Landscaping in Tolland, Ct – as well as an accomplished writer.  He teaches a popular landscape gardening class in the Vernon area and offers writing workshops and classes though Manchester Community College. A regular speaker at various garden clubs and events, he has taught seminars and contributed to various landscaping publications.  His landscape columns have appeared in local newspapers and his recent book: Inside Out: The Art & Craft of Home Landscaping was published in 2007. New York’s Newsday, naming Hutton’s book as one of its favorite gardening books of the year, had this to say of Inside Out, “ …his down to earth writing style  makes this a guide that can be read cover to cover, instead of merely referenced.”

He has written a music column for a Boston area periodical and has had other work published. He is currently working on a second garden book while researching and writing another novel. His critically acclaimed historical novel Perfect Silence was published in 2001.

 Earthworks Landscaping is a complete design/build firm with nearly thirty years of experience specializing in creating exciting outdoor environments and providing unique solutions to common problems.

Richard Howard is a retired engineer and past president of the Connecticut Daylily Society. He resides in Wallingford, Connecticut in growing zone 6. His two acre home has about a dozen perennial beds, a greenhouse, and about 4,000 pots of daylilies. He grows about 1,500 different named varieties of daylilies as well as other perennials and some unusual annuals. He has been hybridizing his own varieties of daylilies for several years and several are under evaluation for possible commercial release. He currently has several thousand of his own seedlings in various beds throughout his yard.

Rich grows many newer varieties of daylilies from the top hybridizers in the country. He received Display Garden approval from the American Hemerocallis Society in 2003.Garden visitors are always welcome. Please call first at 203-294-9520.His web site is www.ctdaylily.com.

His PowerPoint presentation will be “Daylilies-101”. Rich will briefly discuss the types of daylilies and their attributes. He will also discuss their cultural requirements and will show some examples of newer cutting-edge daylilies that will knock your socks off!

A Connecticut Cottage Garden: Adapting a Classic Garden Style to New England Beginning in 2000, Amy conceived and built a cottage garden in Sherman, CT. This unique garden was a collaborative beautification project between Amy and a local business owner. Located near the center of Sherman and functioning as a public garden, this colorful, vibrant space has been recognized for its excellence and highlighted on many occasions in local newspapers (the Litchfield County Times, Danbury News-Times, Sherman Sentinel, and the Citizen News). In this richly illustrated PowerPoint presentation, Amy focuses on what makes a cottage garden and how to adapt a style we associate with the English gardening tradition to our more challenging climate and environment.

Biography: Amy Ziffer, dba A Shady Lady Garden Design, has been designing, installing and maintaining gardens for clients in western Connecticut since 1998. She is a former editor at Fine Gardening magazine and a Master Gardener. Her freelance work as a garden writer and photographer can be seen in Reader's Digest books, Yankee magazine, Fine Gardening magazine and other publications. Her display garden was honored with inclusion in The Garden Conservancy's Open Days Directory beginning in 2007. She frequently lectures and teaches about garden subjects in Connecticut and the lower Hudson Valley.

Roger Swain, “the man with the red suspenders”, is recognized by millions as host of The Victory Garden, television’s longest-running gardening show. For fifteen years Roger planted and pruned, harvested and chatted with PBS viewers across the country.  More recently, he co-hosted People, Places and Plants on HGTV, a show which celebrates New England gardens and gardeners, and features Roger’s commentary, “Food for Thought.” A five disc DVD set of People, Places and Plants is now available: 46 episodes of non-stop gardening! 

Biologist, gardener, writer and storyteller, Roger Swain was born and raised outside Boston Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College, and went on to earn a Ph.D. , studying the behavior in ants in tropical rain forests, before becoming Science Editor of Horticulture magazine. Since 1978 readers have been enjoying Roger’s essays and articles in that magazine, as well as his five books: Earthly Pleasures, Field Days, The Practical Gardener, Saving Graces, and Groundwork. When he is not editing Horticulture, filming the TV series or meeting with gardeners across the country, Roger can be found at work in the orchard and gardens of his New Hampshire farm.

Roger Swain received the American Horticultural Society Award for Writing in 1992, and in 1996 he was awarded the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Gold Medal for his “power to inspire others.”

Richard Jaynes received his B.A. from Wesleyan University and his PhD from Yale. He worked at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station for 25 years as a plant breeder and horticulturist where he published many scientific and popular articles. Most of his publications deal with the propagation and breeding of Kalmia, Castanea, Pieris and Rhododendron. He has named 36 cultivars of mountain laurel. He is author of a book on laurel and edited the reference book, Nut Tree Culture in North America. The third edition of his Kalmia book, Mountain Laurel and Related Species, was published by timber Press (1997). He has received several awards for his work on chestnut trees and laurel. He resigned from he Experiment Station in 1984 to continue his work with laurel, grow Christmas trees and establish Broken Arrow Nursery. He has grown Christmas trees in Hamden, Connecticut for over 60 years. A hobby of his is building stone walls.

Sydney Eddison brings to her popular lectures and gardening classes all the skills gained in more than twenty years of teaching drama. To her writing she brings the joy, enthusiasm, and experience of a life-long gardener. For her work, she received the Connecticut Horticultural Society's Gustav A.L. Melquist Award in 2002; the New England Wild Flower Society Kathryn S. Taylor Award in 2005 and 2006, The Federated Garden Club of Connecticut's Bronze Medal.

Her garden has been featured in magazines and on television: Martha Stewart Living and The Victory Garden.

Ms. Eddison has written six books on gardening and developed a color wheel for gardeners. Ms. Eddison has provided introductions to three books of photography by Harold Feinstein: One Hundred Flowers; Foliage and One Hundred Seashells (Bullfinch Press 2000, 2001 and 2005 respectively); and an introduction to Flora I edited by B. Martin Pedersen (Graphis, New York, May 2002). She has also written the introductory essay for Monet, The Gardener, by Robert Gordon (universe/Rizzoli International, 2002); and has contributed chapters to Salad Gardens and Essential Tools, Brooklyn Botanic Garden handbooks in the 21st Century Gardening Series.

Besides writing frequently for Fine Gardening and other publications, Ms. Eddison, a former scene designer and teacher of drama, continues to teach a few courses every year at the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York.

Pamela Weil started Connecticut Gardener in 1995. Currently, it has 2000 subscribers in five states and keeps her busier than she ever could have imagined!

She is a Master Gardener and served as the President of the Connecticut Master Gardener Association from 1996-1998.

In addition to publishing Connecticut Gardener, Pamela enjoys writing and lecturing about gardening. She has taught the herbaceous ornamentals class to state master gardeners. She also lectures at garden clubs in Connecticut and New York on a variety of topics.

She is a past co-chair of the Westport Tree Board and was a member of the Westport Conservation Commission for 7 years.

Currently she serves as President of the board of directors of the Experiment Station Associates, a group formed to promote the work of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

Dietter’s Water Gardens is presently one of the largest aquatic nurseries in the country and home to Comets to Koi. Comets to Koi is also one of the largest ornamental fish dealers in the United States.

Joe Cannavo Jr. owns and operates a third generation landscape construction company with his wife Theresa. Started in 1932, Cannavo Landscaping has installed tens of thousands of square feet of both segmental block retaining walls and paver sidewalks in a multitude of applications. Joe received his engineering degree from Central University in 1983 and is a certified installer for Versa Lok, Mesa, Unilock as well as many other segmental block and interlocking paver companies. Joe is also certified by N.C.M.A., I.C.P.I. Both are nationally recognized accrediting agencies for installers. Joe resides in Winsted, CT in the Northwestern Corner with his wife and 3 daughters. Cannavo Landscaping services all of Connecticut as well as parts of Massachusetts and New York. Cannavo Landscaping has received many awards over the years including Best Landscape Design Company in 2006 here at the Hartford Flower and Garden Show.